Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/357935
COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | AUGUST 2014 41 technology W hile the trucking industry always has fought to contain turnover, it's the early departures that hurt the most. According to research, nearly a third of new drivers quit within the first three months. Solutions such as higher pay and more respect seem obvious, but despite carriers' best efforts in these and other areas, the problem persists, and the costs are staggering. Speaking at the ALK Technology Summit last May, J.B. Hunt's senior vice president, Richie Henderson, said the Lowell, Ark.- based company expects to hire 11,000 drivers for turnover re- placement this year alone, at an average cost of $5,695 per driver. With so much at stake, many large carriers are going to great lengths to find something – anything – they might have missed that could make a differ- ence. A few of those major fleets now have behavior psychologists on the payroll. Tim Hindes, found- er and chief executive of Stay Metrics, recent- ly was on a conference call with a large motor carrier's executives, including the fleet's director of data. Also on the call was Dr. Timothy Judge, a professor of the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame. Stay Metrics offers an online rewards program designed to build driver loyalty. The company combines this platform with the research it conducts on behalf of clients through phone interviews and online driver satisfaction surveys. "What do you do with the data? What is it telling you?" Judge asked the fleet's director of data during the call. "We don't know," was the response. For Hindes, this brief exchange was an illumi- nating moment. A number of carriers survey their drivers to assess job satis- faction. In theory, this research combined with other sources of driver data could be useful to predict which drivers are likely to leave. Proactive measures then could be taken to reach those drivers and curb turnover, or perhaps not hire drivers with a similar profile the next time around. In reality, carriers often lack the in-house expertise and tools to research their own data, making it difficult to draw conclusions, Hindes says. Stay Metrics conducts an annual driver satisfaction survey on be- half of its clients. Designed with input from Judge and other experts, the 100-question survey may appear long, yet 97 percent of drivers complete it, Hindes says. Carriers use the results from the survey to make decisions based on facts. A carrier might find that 17 percent of its drivers are dissatis- fied with pay. Should this be taken as a sign that a pay raise is needed? Comparing the responses from drivers at one fleet to those from all fleets would indicate otherwise. Anything less than 23.5 percent is good, Hindes says. Stay Metrics currently is working on a project with Judge – re- cently named the company's director of research – to correlate the personality profiles of drivers with turnover and safety performance. The group already has completed the front end of the project by drafting detailed personality profiles of 350 drivers; each profile took one hour to complete. The company plans to match those driver personality profiles to safety performance and predict which driver candidates are more likely to be a long-term safe driver. MAKING THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENTS WORK FOR YOUR FLEET BY AARON HUFF technology AARON HUFF is Senior Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail ahuff@ccjmagazine.com or call (801) 754-4296. ABOVE FLEETS' HEADS: Assess- ing driver satisfaction may require expertise. RETENTION DATA: A Stay Metrics research team will focus on driver turnover. THE BEST HIRE: Personality profiles will be matched with retention and safety. Turning over retention data Stay Metrics tackles driver satisfaction, turnover Richie Henderson, J.B. Hunt's senior vice president, told ALK Tech- nology Summit attendees that his company expects to hire 11,000 drivers for turnover replacement this year alone.